Lucita Arainai-Surana
Lucita Arainai-Surana is the daughter of Warden-Commander Surana and Zevran Arainai. During the chaotic period that followed the explosion at the Conclave, Lucita resided in Skyhold, where she made Leliana’s existence a living hell until the Inquisition was disbanded. As an adult, she follows in her mother’s footsteps and after having attended the University of Orlais for five years, she sets out to study the Blight—and try to find a cure for the Calling—under the patronage of King Alistair Theirin. She now lives at court, where a series of events force her to work as an agent of the Crown. Overview Physical Appearance Small and lithe like her mother, Lucita is a dark eyed, tan skinned young woman who wears her heart on her sleeve and has an extremely expressive face. Her waist-long hair is usually tied in a practical braid to keep it out of her face, but at court, she sometimes gathers it into an intricate bun when the fancy strikes her. She takes a lot after her father, having inherited his wide mouth, always ready to smile, and his long nose. Her adventurous nature has led to her having a few benign scars, the most impressive one being a long gash along her ribs, where an assassin’s blade barely missed her heart as she rolled out of the way. She has two tattoos, that she got from an exceptionally talented artist in the Val Royeaux alienage while she was at the University: the first one, on her upper right thigh and hip, represents a hummingbird drinking the nectar out of a bundle of flowers, and the other one is a peony on her left wrist, that she fancies makes it seem as if she’s wearing a glove. Personality Lucita is a deeply passionate, curious woman with a distinct sadistic streak. Uncompromisingly honest, she is often perceived as rude and callous, but the people she loves know that she can be extremely sweet and caring. She can hold a grudge though, and if she believes someone has wronged her, she will invariably exact revenge. The nature of said revenge can range from harmless prank to grievous harm, depending on the gravity of the —real or perceived—offense. "Humble" is not a term that could ever be associated with her, and she is brave to the point of being careless at times which had gotten her into trouble more than once. 'Talents and Skills' Trained by Zevran in the art of stealth and assassination under the pretense of games, Lucita was, at ten years old, more than capable of holding her own against a foe bigger than her—or buy enough time to run and hide somewhere. During her stay in Skyhold, sparring matches with various soldiers kept her skills honed and her purse full, but it was the Inquisitor who pushed her beyond her limits and turned her into a terrifyingly competent fighter. Her preferred weapons are twin daggers that her father gave her on the day he started her formal training—as opposed to the “games” they played before. While she inherited some magical talent from her mother, she mainly uses her magic to maintain an edge in combat and control the battle. She learned a few nifty tricks from Solas, like using a small paralyzing glyph that wouldn't draw too much on her mana reserve, but instead of paralyzing her foe entirely, would only lock their leg for a brief moment and trip them, allowing her to strike with her blades. This is one of her favorite tricks. Outside of battle, Lucita is an expert burglar and climber—skills she developed as part of her training with Zevran—and in Skyhold, she puts them to use them mostly to steal things and play pranks. She loves nothing more than being perched, and most of her hiding places are high above ground. As such, people who know her well have learned to look up often. She has a lovely singing voice, but even though she is a creative soul, she's is absolutely inept in anything that involves crafting of any kind. Her drawings look like blobs of ink or paint, and when she tries to make something with her hands, the result is rarely identifiable at all. She can’t lie to save her life. Biography Vigil's Keep Lucita was born shortly after the Battle of Denerim—during which Loghain slew the Archdemon and died in the process. She grew up among Wardens in Vigil’s Keep, where she was the only child. When her mother was busy being “the Commander,” Warden-Constable Nathaniel Howe often found himself saddled with the task of watching over young Lucita. The two of them got along famously, and they often wrestled together, which contributed to imparting a solid base of hand to hand combat skills to Lucita. Once, Nathaniel even found himself literally saddled, with a laughing, shrieking Lucita on his back. There were no witnesses to that event, and so far Lucita has kept her promise to never mention it to anyone. When Neria had to leave for long periods of time, she usually brought her daughter along—although she would never take Lucita directly into darkspawn-infested areas, of course—and left her in safe places close to where she was supposed to go. Thus, a very young Lucita once spent several weeks with Lanaya’s Clan, visited the royal palace in Denerim on more than one occasion, and has even sojourned in Orzammar for two months on end with her father while her mother led an expedition to the Deep Roads. When Lucita was ten years old, her parents undertook the last leg of the journey that was supposed to lead them to curing the Calling. At the same time, the sky opened and the Inquisition was founded. Judging that it was far too dangerous to bring Lucita with them, Neria and Zevran decided to take her to Denerim, where King Alistair and Queen Anora would take her in and provide for her until they returned. While Zevran and Lucita were traveling through Orlais, Corypheus attacked Haven and the town was destroyed. Even though Denerim was better fortified than Haven, Zevran decided that only the safest place in Thedas would be worthy of his daughter, and he took Lucita to Skyhold instead to leave her in the care of Neria’s closest friend, Leliana. 'Skyhold' During her time in Skyhold, Lucita was a constant source of mayhem, taking it upon herself to prank everyone she knew—from good-natured jokes to people she thought deserved to have some fun, to much more mean-spirited, sometimes even harmful pranks to people she despised. When she liked someone, she often left them gifts that she thought they would like or would make them laugh, such as silly paintings on the—still bare—walls of the rotunda where Solas painted his frescoes, or boxes of sweets or funny doll arrangements on Josephine’s desk, for example. When she despised someone, her “gifts” became much more nasty, such as chunks of rotting meat hidden in Vivienne’s wardrobe, so all of her clothes would smell like decaying flesh. The moment Lucita met the Inquisitor—she had climbed along the outside wall of the war room to a window so that she could spy on a meeting, and got caught—she took a shine to him. She regularly infiltrated his retinue when he went out on official business, to the point where Leliana had to assign agents to watch her and prevent her from leaving Skyhold every time he did. The only minder Lucita never managed to shake was the agent named Jester, who seemed to always know where to find her, and even what tricks she would use to try and slip away. Shortly before the Inquisition marched on Adamant, an eleven year old Lucita received a letter from her parents, saying that they thought there was a very real risk of them not coming back but that they loved their little vixen very much and were glad she was safe in Skyhold. That was the last Lucita ever heard of them, and the source of her lasting abandonment issues. She tried to infiltrate the army to go with them, so she could see Wardens again—who she considered her family—but both Danevhen and Leliana were expecting it this time, and they took steps to make sure she would stay in Skyhold. She was there during the Grand Ball at Halamshiral, where she spent the whole stay exploring the palace and raiding the kitchens. She brought back a halla statuette as a souvenir. Once, she followed Terren—the stablemaster’s assistant—and his aides to Denerim, because she was growing bored and decided to pay Alistair a visit. By the time she was discovered, it was too late to turn and bring her back to Skyhold, so Terren resolved to simply watch her and make sure nothing happened to her. The moment they set foot in the city, she slipped away and infiltrated the palace, where she stayed for three days until Terren finally managed get to her. When Leliana was elected Divine, she didn't quite know what to do with Lucita, but since she had promised Zevran she would take care of her, she resolved to take her with her to Val Royeaux. Lucita threw a fit, because for one, she never got along with Leliana and found the idea of living with her positively abhorrent, but she had also made a friend in the person of Gabriel Trevelyan—who had essentially been a father figure to her for the past year—and she absolutely refused to leave him. Keeping Lucita away from all the political intrigues of the Chantry would prove much safer for the child, Leliana decided, and she agreed to leave her in Gabriel's care. Lucita and Gabriel stayed in Skyhold until the Inquisition disbanded, then traveled together for a while with Gabriel’s lover before the two men bought a little house on the island of Alamar, where they settled down with her for good. University of Orlais In 9:47 Dragon, Lucita—then sixteen years old—left Alamar to study medicine, geology and history at the University of Orlais, sponsored by Divine Victoria herself. Although her ancestry wasn't precisely a secret, Lucita went by the name of Arainai to prevent people from harassing her with questions about her parents, on the off chance that someone would actually know her mother's last name. During her first year, a wave of unfortunate accidents befell people who treated her badly. Most notable among them was a professor who consistently called her “rabbit” and sent her on errands no other student ever had to perform. Within three months, the professor contracted a strange illness that sprouted painful and suppurent rashes all over body, including inside her throat and nose, barely allowing her to eat anything and completely preventing her from speaking—and thus teaching—for several weeks. When she recovered enough to assume her functions again, she wasn't nearly as virulent as she had been before. With time—and hard lessons learned—most students stopped treating Lucita like a servant, but she only ever made one friend among them during her five years there. But Lucita didn't spend all her time on the University grounds. She visited the alienage as often as she could, and there she made a few friends. Among them was the exceptionally talented tattoo artist did his best work on her. For the duration of Lucita’s studies at the University, they were engaged in a tumultuous and passionate relationship that they both knew was unlikely to last once Lucita graduated—and it didn't. During that time, Lucita also regularly received the visit of her Dalish lover, Viresem, with whom she fully expected to become a real couple once she left Val Royeaux. That didn't happen either. Royal Court of Ferelden After her graduation at the age of twenty-one, Lucita decided that she wouldn't stay at the University, even though she had been offered a position as researcher under a renowned professor. She was an elf, after all, and all too familiar with the way the academic world—and history—tended to treat her kind. Moreover, the very subject she planned to focus on—the Blight, and by extension, blood magic—was immensely controversial, and she feared both the Chantry’s censure and a conscription by the Wardens, whom she had no intention of joining if she could help it. She decided that she would do private research for a wealthy patron instead, someone who would treat her fairly as they would any other scholar, and so she selected a number of nobles or rich and influential people she could write to. The list was dreadfully short, but at the top was King Alistair Theirin. As he was a Warden himself and her parents’ friend, Lucita felt confident that he would respond favorably. She wrote to him to expose her project to research the Blight and perhaps even finish what her mother had started, namely, cure the Calling—Neria had left a considerable amount of her notes for Lucita to inherit should she disappear on one of her journeys, and thus Lucita had a solid base to work with—and Alistair wrote back and offered her a place at the palace, where he would see to her needs and fund her research. When she arrived in Denerim, “Lady Arainai” was of course the subject of many rumors at court. She was an elf but not a servant; a scholar freshly arrived from Orlais who evidently had the King’s ear. People tried to squeeze her for details, trying to determine if she would turn out to be a useful ally or a dangerous political enemy, to no avail. She was polite and pleasant, but mostly kept to herself, unsure of her own place. Interestingly, she wasn't the only elf at court who had been granted a certain status. Aimé, an Orlesian minstrel with a voice that could make darkspawn weep, had arrived at court four months ago and was about the same age as Lucita. At first, it was their quite unique position at court that brought them together, but over time they discovered that their personalities meshed well together, and they became good friends. What Lucita didn't know was that Aimé was a bard sent to court by a faction of Orlesian nobles who wished to see Empress Celene deposed and replaced by a direct descendant of Emperor Drakon. To achieve that goal, Aimé was to insinuate himself to the royals by whatever means necessary, and begin the hard work of undermining diplomatic efforts between their two countries. At its core, his job was to sow distrust of Orlais at court, gather information on who among the King and Queen’s advisors held what positions regarding Orlais, intercept and read any relevant communications, and then report back on all he had learned. If Aimé’s employers wanted him to alter documents or conduct assassinations, they would let him know. One night, about six months after Lucita arrived at court, Aimé received instructions to assassinate her within a month. Lucita was, after all, a scholar from the University of Orlais, the treasured pupil of Divine Victoria herself and living under the protection of the King of Ferelden. Having her assassinated in Ferelden, in the very palace where the King was supposed to keep her safe just might outrage Orlesian nobles whose anger had already been stoked by previous plots, and could very well be the spark to start a war. But Aimé’s employers had failed to take into account the fact that he had come to genuinely care for Lucita, and as soon as he was done reading the instructions, he rushed to Lucita’s rooms to warn her—perhaps even ask her to flee with him. When he arrived in her chambers, all he saw was the still form of a dark haired woman lying on the ground before he was slammed violently against the wall by an angry and hurt Lucita holding a dagger at his throat and demanding answers. He admitted to her that he was an Orlesian spy, but revealed that he had been coerced by his employers, who were threatening to kill the woman who had raised and trained him if he tried to escape. Lady Adelaide, a bard of great renown, had been exiled from Orlais after an assassination attempt at the Grand Cathedral. She and Aimé had been apprehended, the Lady exiled and Aimé sentenced to death. As he awaited his fate in prison, Aimé had been taken into a nondescript room where his new employers explained what they were expecting from him. Aimé had no idea where the Lady was or how to contact her, so for her sake, he had submitted to the whims of his employers. Even though she knew she shouldn’t, Lucita believed him. She knew that other assassination attempts were likely to occur in the future, and that she would never be safe as long as that plot existed, so she decided that the simplest solution was to dismantle this organization of nobles and stop their plans altogether. Lucita had stayed in contact with a number of useful people she had met in Skyhold and she wrote to Sera, who helped her find the woman by contacting servants in a number of noble houses where Aimé believed the Lady might be. Once she new where she was, Lucita did the sensible thing and told Alistair everything she knew, asking him to let her handle it because she had personal stakes in it. He agreed, and of course worked on his end to ensure the continuation of good relationships between Ferelden and Orlais. Lucita and Aimé left Denerim to West Hill, where Lady Adelaide was believed to reside. They indeed found her there, only to discover that she had been a part of the plot all along, playing the “hostage” to make sure that she had total control over Aimé and that he would cooperate without question. She died smiling, telling Aimé how proud she was that he had found her and had the spine to kill her. After that, Aimé and Lucita worked together to put a stop to the conspiracy, methodically tracking and identifying the rest of the group. They couldn’t be rewarded publicly, but Aimé was pardoned for the crime that had led to his planned execution in Orlais and for his work against the Crown in Ferelden, and Lucita was granted permanent quarters at the Palace in Denerim, and a lifetime of stipend, regardless of where she chose to live next. Aimé was never allowed to perform for the Royal Couple again, but he found work for a minor noble in Denerim as a simple minstrel, and he accompanied Lucita whenever she needed to go out and do field research. Relationships Describe their relationships with established protagonists/characters in the universe. Who are they known to? Who are they loyal to? Miscellaneous What else happened, or what else can you tell us about Your OC, bruh? Think of things like likes, dislikes, fears, strengths and weaknesses, etc. This is as close as you'll get to being able to word-vomit about your OC while keeping the article organized and will probably be the longest section. Feel free to add sub-headings as necessary with sub-heading 2: Like So Links 'Reddit Headcanon or Writing Prompt Threads:' 'Off-site links (AO3, DeviantArt, Tumblr):' Gallery DerpyLuce.jpg|Derp. Category:Non-protagonist Category:Elf Category:Headcanon Background Category:Rogue Category:Mage Category:Assassin Category:Headcanon Romance Category:ZulaPopcorn